Review by islander255 (2009-04-24)
Viginia Woolf's "The Waves" does not take the form of traditional narration. Rather, its six main characters narrate the entire story in dialogue the entire time. At first this seemed an interesting way to tell a story with a stream of consciousness.

It wasn't. It was a gimmick. 20 pages in, the novelty wore off, and all that was left were six very muddled characters who did very little.

This novel is an experimental novel. However, the experiment should never be the focus! Also, if a story can be told better in the traditional form than in the experimental form, ditch the experiment, no matter how creative it is. Sadly, I felt there was a rather interesting storyline in here trying to work its way out of Virginia Woolf's pompous little gimmick that ran 290 pages too long.